When Al Jefferson pounds the ball inside, the Utah Jazz are tough to beat, especially when Paul Millsap is at this side.

Jefferson has been playing darn good basketball lately but in a recent NBA victory over the Detroit Pistons, he noted that he and Millsap are tough to beat when they’re both on their game. And that’s been quite a bit lately.

“I told Paul (Millsap), ‘it starts with us’. We lead, and everybody else is going to follow. And that’s what we did,” he said. “Basically that’s what I said to myself, I said I have to take the game over. It starts with me and Paul (Millsap), and I think once me and him set that tone, everybody else fell in line. But number one is the defense, we played great defense. We talked to each other, we helped each other, and all of a sudden their shots weren’t coming so easily.”

At 17.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, Jefferson has been very consistent underneath for the Jazz with one recent exception. He only had 10 points in a 125-80 fiasco loss to the Houston Rockets. But everyone was playing lousy for the Jazz in that game. Jefferson bounced back to play well with 22 points against the New Orleans Hornets and 21 against the Portland Trailblazers.

Hopefully, the terrible performance Jefferson and his teammates had against Houston is in the past will be a thing of the past. He’s too good of a player for that to happen again. The Jazz certainly hope that’s the case.